Oh, you know it’s the year of the women in politics — just two days past big-state primaries with successful female candidates — when the chatter is all about their hair.

While waiting for a TV interview, Carly Fiorina, the newly minted Republican nominee for the Senate in California, got caught on an open microphone on Wednesday. Much of the conversation with someone off-screen was chat-lite, but two segments have been whipped around like a long pony tail on a windy day, taken on one level as a catty aside and on another, as a mistake by a novice candidate.

After questioning why another successful candidate on the Republican ticket, Meg Whitman, the G.O.P.’s gubernatorial nominee, would want to appear on Fox’s Sean Hannity show, Ms. Fiorina somehow segued to the hairstyle of Senator Barbara Boxer, her Democratic opponent.

“Laura saw Barbara Boxer briefly on television this morning and said what everyone said, ‘God what is that hair?′ Sooooooooooooo yesterday,” Ms. Fiorina said, repeatedly scrolling through her BlackBerry. This sharing comes, of course, from the candidate who transformed a Republican primary opponent into a furry demon-sheep in a television ad.

It’s unlikely Mrs. Boxer would return similar fire. Ms. Fiorina’s closely cropped hair is the result of the chemotherapy she underwent while battling breast cancer.